go forth and sin no more
by alinaandalion
Summary: Nate and Sophie discuss the events of "The Last Dam Job."  "God looks at our actions and judges.  The details matter."  Written for Leverage Bingo.  Prompt:  Nathan Ford.


When she wakes up and he's not in bed beside her, Sophie isn't surprised. She's been waiting for this shoe to drop for the past two weeks, so she just rolls out of bed and finds some clothes to put on. Now in a T-shirt and a pair of Nate's boxers he left laying around, she heads out to look for Nate.

She finds him in the bar downstairs, sitting hunched over a glass and a half-full bottle of whiskey, staring down his father's old bar stool.

"Did I wake you up?"

She shrugs and slides onto a stool beside him, leaning over the bar's edge to pluck a glass off the shelf. "Just wasn't expecting to wake up alone."

"Sorry about that." He takes a long sip of his whiskey; he traces his fingers along the edge of his tumbler. "Did I kill them?"

She opens the bottle and pours some whiskey for herself before answering, "No. Not technically."

"Then isn't it murder?"

She tosses back the whiskey and winces at the burn. "What's going on in your head, Nate?"

He avoids her eyes and finishes his drink, immediately filling his glass back to the brim; she resists the urge to touch him and wraps her fingers around her own glass.

"God looks at our actions and judges. The details matter."

She sees his hand tighten around his glass. She's been waiting for this guilt because it's as much a constant as the alcohol or control issues. She would have been fine if he had killed Dubenich or Latimer; but she knows she would be talking a gun out of his mouth instead of a bottle out of his hand.

"Nate, you didn't kill them."

"Didn't I? I talked them into diving after that gun. I'm pretty sure that counts, Soph."

She reaches over and plucks his glass from his hand because she wants his full attention; he starts to protest, but she silences him with a stern look. She places a gentle hand on his arm, leaning closer.

"I want you to listen very closely to me, Nate. I have a very good guess about what you told those men, but you didn't kill them. They had a choice to walk away, and they didn't. Just like you had a choice to pull that trigger." 

"I still…"

"You're not a murderer."

He laughs bitterly and shakes his head. "My intent was for them to both end up dead. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Do you want to carry around this guilt?"

"Until I find a penance for this."

"When will that be?"

"Never?" He hunches over the bar, narrowing his eyes. "How do you make up for killing two people?"

"I thought that was what we did every day." When he looks at her, she tilts her head to the side, tracing her forefinger around the rim of her glass. "We're all here for a reason, Nate, and it's not always about helping people. Eliot isn't the only one with blood on his hands."

"Who did you kill?"

"More than one."

"Then how many?" His voice is almost too quiet, his face drawn.

"Three. Twice out of self-defense, once in cold blood." The numbers crack under her tongue, and she hates the weakness.

He turns his eyes toward her, licking his lips before asking, "How did you get past it?"

"I haven't." It's not the answer she wants to give him, but he needs to hear the truth. He'll feel betrayed later if she lies. "It just gets easier to forget."

"So, being one of the good guys is your way of making up for what you did?"

"It's my way of trying. There's a difference."

He nods his head, and she hands him back his glass; he swallows the whiskey in two goes and pours more for himself. She sips at hers. He looks again in the direction of that damned stool, his blue eyes growing darker and more haunted.

"Do you think my father would be proud of me?"

His voice startles her, and she waits to give an answer, mapping out the lines on his face, wanting to smooth them away.

"Do you want your father to be proud of you?"

He raises his eyebrows and smiles a little at her response. "You're much better at asking the questions than me."

"You have to ask the right questions to get the answers you need." She leans her chin on her hand and nudges the bottle closer to him.

He finishes off his glass and tilts the bottle past the edge, the dark liquid splashing along the bottom. He takes her hand in his and pulls her a little closer.

"He loved you, Nate. The two of you might not have seen eye-to-eye on almost everything, but you were his son, and he loved you."

He stills, closes his eyes, and she watches the twitch in his cheek, knows he's pushing back tears; she just tightens her fingers around his and presses her lips to the side of his head. It's not the same as a priest's blessing or forgiveness, but it's something. Understanding, maybe.

He turns towards her and kisses her, his fingers light on her jaw instead of fumbling for a glass, and she wonders if maybe finding peace can work both ways. When he pulls away from her, he keeps his eyes on her and pulls her after him, not looking back to see the ghosts that haunt him.

Maybe he was right when he called the bar a confessional.


End file.
